By Harold Raker
HERSHEY — Manheim Central was just one big play away from spoiling Selinsgrove’s shot at a first state title.
The Seals were clinging to a 10-7 lead, the result of a Seth Lauver touchdown run with just 1:47 left in the game.
Baron’s quarterback Justin Gorman, who had given his team the lead in the second quarter with a 35-yard TD pass, was looking for another home run.
Selinsgrove senior linebacker Bryant Trautman had already made up his mind that it was not going to happen, not on this night.
“I told my teammates I was going to get the sack,” Trautman said Friday night after the Seals, aided by another outstanding defensive performance, won the state title in their first appearance in the final.
Trautman backed up his words, nailing the Barons’ senior quarterback for a 9-yard loss, his second sack of the game, this one on a third-and-five.
“That was the greatest feeling of my life,” Trautman said.
“I can’t explain it. I told the guys ‘I’m going to get this sack’ and I did it and it was perfect.
I have to give credit to all the other players.’’ One of those players is senior safety Ryan Keiser, whose leaping interception set up the Seals’ TD drive.
“Keiser is a champion, man.
He always steps up in big games and makes big plays. He’s a champion,” added Trautman, who finished with nine tackles (four for loss) and a break-up to go with the sacks.
Junior linebacker Lauver also had six tackles for the winners.
On the next play after Trautman’s sack, fellow senior linebacker Dylan Elliot put a hard hit on Baron receiver Casey Ebersole and the Gorman fourth-down pass fell incomplete.
At first Elliot thought the catch had been made.
“I knew I gave him a solid hit and then it was like ‘they got the first down.’ ’’ “I looked back and I saw that he dropped the ball and right there I knew we had won the state championship game,” Elliot said.
That Seals’ final defensive stand was much like their performance for the rest of the game as they found a way to hold a Barons’ offense that averaged 40 points a game to a mere 7 points.
Elliot said, “A lot of us dug deep. We are mainly a senior team and we just wanted it more and we got it.”
The Seals got good pressure on Gorman much of the night, but the senior quarterback was able to pick up the pressure, and the blitzes, and burn them with both his feet and his arm at times.
But Elliot said the Seals were determined not to give up a big play on that final possession.
“The quarterback usually gave away what he was going to do. He peaked around at his receivers when he was going to throw, he did have that flaw.
He also crouched a little lower when he was going to run. You have to pick up on things like that when you have a good defense like Selinsgrove,” he said.
Senior tackle Spencer Myers, who had five tackles, agreed that the Seals were a determined defensive unit when it came down to making one last stop for the state title.
“They are a great team, we just had to control what we were doing. Everybody just did their part, everybody stayed home, we all knew what we had to do,” Myers said. “I’m proud of everybody. It’s a great feeling.”
Trautman said the Seals knew coming into the game that they were in great shape and that they could outlast the Barons and in the end that is what happened.
“Kudos to their line, their line was huge and they blocked us very well,” Trautman said.
“We had to do a lot of stunting to try to throw them off to try to get into the gaps.”
But things didn’t look promising when the Seals trailed 7-0 at halftime and 7-3 through most of the final quarter.
“At first I thought we were going to lose, but we came back and we won,” Myers said. “In my head I thought we were going to lose. I kept looking at the scoreboard and kept looking at the clock and I was thinking ‘man, what’s going to happen now.’ ’’ “We just came together and we knew what we had to get done and we just kept pushing and kept driving and we got the win.”
Then, with the lead in hand, Myers looked at the clock for a different reason.
“I kept looking at it and wondering when it was going to run out,” he said. “It just kept ticking and ticking.”
And when it final showed all zeros, “I was just so happy.”
